(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
Both the Pakistani Rupee and Asad Umer are artificially overvalued, economists at a moot at the Centre for Economic Research at the Karachi University have concluded.
“The fact of the matter is that the rupee, despite the government’s explicitly stated policy of having a free-floating exchange, was artificially buoyed up through open-market operations by the Ishaq Dar finance ministry, a trend that hasn’t quite subsided in this administration either,” said Dr Shamsher Khattak, Deputy Chairperson Economics Department at the Peshawar University.
“Similarly, Asad Umer has also been artificially overvalued, despite the fact that in a free and fair open market, he would still be brushing up his CV as we speak.”
“Yes, there are arguments for intervening in the market for the greater common good, but after a while, it starts costing a lot of money,” said Dr Saleema Hassan, professor of monetary economics at the Forman Christian College University, Lahore.
“We need to weigh the plusses and minuses here. It’s really very expenses to keep them both where they are right now.”
“But we also need to make sure that the alternate strategy is well in place,” she said.
“If we’re letting the rupee slide, we should stop the open market operations and not by printing more notes. Similarly, we need to get someone competent in place of Asad Umer, not give Imran Khan the additional portfolio.”
